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Ford executives noted the abrupt abandonment of Facebook advertising by their cross-town rivals at General Motors and reiterated that they're approaching social-media marketing differently. They also offered very thinly veiled criticism of GM's move.

"We are doing more advertising on Facebook," Matt VanDyke, Ford's director of marketing communications, told me, "and it is a growing and critical part of our media mix."

And presumably referring to GM, he said, "You won't make the right choices if you view Facebook as an advertising network. You can't just pick up advertising that would run somewhere else and put it on Facebook as an ad banner."

Another highly ranked Ford-marketing insider was more critical of GM, calling it "odd to summarily cut off" paid advertising on Facebook. "It's still the early days of this, and the metrics aren't defined 100 percent," said this observer, who declined to be identified. "But [social media] are so massive in their reach, and appropriately guided and applied, [advertising on Facebook] can be potent.

"Wouldn't you just say to Facebook, 'We're not going to spend as much on paid advertising right now, and in order to earn our business, can we come up with something more clever and that is going to meet our objectives?" That's how most marketers would approach it."

GM's decision, revealed on Tuesday, rocked the social-media and advertising worlds in part because the news came a few days before Facebook's planned IPO on Friday, which could value the company at $100 billion or more. And GM hasn't been alone among big-brand marketers in voicing uncertainties about whether paid advertising on Facebook -- despite its user base and ubiquity -- is worth the investment.

Still, the amount that GM paid to Facebook for advertising was only about $10 million a year, according to the Wall Street Journal, which broke the story. That amounts to only about two days' worth of overall media buying by the automotive behemoth, pointed out Rebecca Lindland, director of research for IHS Automotive, in a Forbes.com post on Tuesday.

And GM executives noted that they are still spending another roughly $30 million a year on their brands' overall Facebook presence, including content initiatives that can be integrated with paid advertising.

But VanDyke and Scott Monty, Ford's global head of social media, told me that Ford has made its Facebook presence productive for its brands and nameplates by ensuring that paid advertising is integrated with content on Facebook and usually is directly pertinent to a vehicle launch. "We collaborate with Facebook and decide what works," VanDyke explained. "Our focus is on meaningful partnerships to generate engagement."

For example, Ford recently combined paid advertising and content on Facebook in a "customizer" app for the Mustang, which included sponsored placement of a video on the logout page. "We got one million views in one day," VanDyke said. "We found a unique way to use the logout page."

Ford also has a Facebook presence, including paid advertising and other content, for its NBC Saturday-night show, Escape Routes, a promotion for the new 2013 Escape utility vehicle. And last year, it used a similarly integrated Facebook platform to create interest in the new 2012 Explorer utility vehicle.